1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to receivers and drivers in general, and in particular to a programmable transceiver for Field Programmable Gate Array devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices are commonly employed to implement different functions in various applications. Because of the large numbers of potential applications, FPGA devices will be called upon in various applications to receive input signals from a variety of circuits having different voltage swing standards between logic 1 and logic 0. Similarly, FPGA devices will be called upon in various applications to drive a variety of circuits having output signals that must meet the voltage standards for logic 1 and logic 0 of the circuit being driven. FPGA devices may also need to communicate with other devices that are designed to meet input/output (I/O) specifications at a different power supply voltage.
Suffice to say, it can be very costly and time-consuming to customize each and every I/O buffer for every application. The conventional method is to use several driver and receiver circuits in parallel, and one of the circuits can be selected by using a multiplexor. Such designs tend to require a large amount of silicon chip area, and the operations may have longer signal delays and may dissipate more power than necessary.
Consequently, it would be desirable to provide a transceiver circuit that can be field programmed to meet various requirements of different applications.